


Pumpkin Carving

by voidisa



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Found Family, Friendship, Halloween, Happy, Minor Isa/Lea (Kingdom Hearts), No Angst, One Big Happy Family, Pumpkins, Slice of Life, but like not enough to tag it as a relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:08:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26956333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voidisa/pseuds/voidisa
Summary: Lea wants Xion, Roxas, and Naminé to experience the fine art of pumpkin carving this Halloween season.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 19





	Pumpkin Carving

“Pumpkins!” Lea called as he burst through the front door of the mansion, struggling not to drop the gigantic gourds on the ground. He’d gotten five at the market -- the biggest and the most expensive ones he could find, one for each of the members of the household. If he dropped one and it busted, well...someone was just out of luck. Not him. Maybe Isa. He was definitely going to carve arve a pumpkin. Now the only thing he needed to do was decide the design. He'd been thinking about it ever since leaving the market. Flames would be too obvious. A face would be fine, but he couldn't make it too basic. 

Xion poked her head out from the door of Roxas's bedroom, where the loud banging sounds of a video game rang out. "Yes, dear? Oh -- you meant real pumpkins." She frowned, her eyebrows furrowing in confusion. "Why do you have real pumpkins? Are we baking?" She perked up immediately, her blue eyes filling with joyous light. She loved baking. Especially when things were chaotic in the kitchen which, when Lea was involved, was all the time. 

"Nope!" Lea exclaimed as one of the pumpkins rolled out of his arms and smacked onto the ground. Thankfully, it didn't bust. He let the others tumble free from his grasp, and with a sigh, he smiled and said, "They're for carving." 

"Carving?" Xion asked. By this point, Naminé and Roxas had abandoned whatever activities they were doing in the room and emerged into the foyer, examining the large pumpkins that had been scattered in front of them. 

"Yeah! Isa and I used to carve pumpkins all the time when we were younger. We would make funny faces on them or try to do self-portraits. I carved Isa one time, and it was so ugly that he hit me." He grinned, remembering all of the good times they'd had in Radiant Garden. After all they'd been through, it was hard to imagine they'd ever had normal lives, but he remembered it all vividly and lovingly. "We outgrew all that, though. We would still watch horror movies in our pajamas and eat way too much candy, but we stopped trick or treating and all that." 

"Trick or treating? Carving pumpkins? I --" Roxas sighed, picking up the largest pumpkin out of the bunch and examining it with such care and tenderness it was as if he was holding a newborn baby. "I don't understand." 

"It's for Halloween," Lea explained. "Like Halloweentown, you know. Jack Skellington and his spooky friends." 

Xion's eyes widened, and for the first time, she actually looked excited about the idea instead of skeptical. "Oh, I thought Halloweentown was such an interesting place! Except until...you know…" She shrugged. 

"No bad memories!" Lea shouted, wrapping his arms around their shoulders and drawing them close. "Only fun times in this mansion this Halloween. Starting with carving pumpkins." 

"Hmm…" Naminé picked one up and studied it, her nose wrinkling in confusion. "It's an interesting art medium, isn't it? I never thought about creating a picture on a pumpkin." She nodded in satisfaction, a tiny smile pulling at her lips. "I've already got an idea. I can't wait to try it out!" 

"I call this one!" Roxas exclaimed, hoisting the large pumpkin over his head. 

“No fair! I didn’t even get to look at them before you picked one!” Xion exclaimed, slapping him in the arm as they both laughed and Roxas swung the giant pumpkin around like a battering ram while Xion dodged. Lea smiled as they chased each other across the room, satisfied for the first time in a long time with how his life looked. This was what he had always wanted. And now, it was finally his. 

“What is going on down here?” 

The chaos stopped momentarily as they all looked up at the top of the stairs, where Isa stood with his reading glasses on and his hair tied up on top of his head. Oh no. The reading glasses. He only wore those when he was in extreme Thinking Mode. The scowl on his face made Lea wonder if perhaps he’d made a mistake bringing home the pumpkins. 

But he proceeded to pick a couple of them up and grin, showing them off as if they were trophies. “We’re carving pumpkins today, Isa! Remember when we used to do that all the time? We’d mess up so many pumpkins. Your mom would get so mad --” 

“I’m working on plans for the Restoration Committee,” Isa said flatly. “I told them they’d be ready by tomorrow.” 

Oh. The Restoration Committee. That had been taking up as much of Isa’s time as keyblade training had been taking up Lea’s. Lea frowned, halfway thinking that they should just abandon the idea until later, but then he looked at the three teenagers standing there with their pumpkins already picked out and the excitement dulling from their eyes, and he just couldn’t stand the thought of making them wait. It was Halloween! They deserved to experience all the things they’d never had since none of them had technically ever had childhoods. 

“Okay, but pumpkin carving right now?” Lea asked, holding up a pumpkin toward Isa and putting on his most innocent face that he could manage. Isa would never ever admit it, Lea knew, but he could hardly resist when Lea pouted. “Come on, it’ll be fun! There are two pumpkins left unclaimed, and I’ll let you pick which one you want. And tonight, we can stay up super late, and we’ll all help you with whatever you need to do.” 

Isa pursed his lips together, his eyes grazing over Lea’s face with such an unreadable expression that Lea was almost certain he was going to say no. Then slowly, his mouth curled up into a tiny smile, and he said, “I want the one on the left. And put some towels down or something. We’re not going to make a mess.” 

“Aww, but messes are the best part!” Roxas exclaimed, but nonetheless, he trudged out of the room with the girls to get something to lay across the floor. They were all still carrying their pumpkins like their lives depended on it. 

Lea watched in silence and awe as Isa descended the stairs, padding softly down the wooden steps as quietly as a cat stalking through the night. And as gracefully too. It didn’t matter how often they got to see each other or how many years went by; Lea was never going to get tired of looking at Isa. He was beautiful in a way he didn’t even know how to describe. 

“What?” Isa asked, stopping at the bottom of the stairs. “Is there something wrong?” 

Lea shook his head, closing the gap between them and handing over the pumpkin Isa had chosen. “You look cozy,” he said, pulling on the hem of Isa’s sweater as he pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I like the glasses.” 

Isa scoffed, immediately removing the glasses and setting them down next to the vase on the table. Compliments always made him uncomfortable, Lea knew, but he deserved to get them as much as possible. And he thought that somewhere deep down, Isa actually enjoyed them, because his cheeks were now tinged the slightest rosy pink, and he was smiling. It was a good look on him. The best. 

“What made you want to carve pumpkins today?” Isa asked. “Halloween is still two weeks away.” 

Lea shrugged. “I know. But there’s still so many other Halloween things we can all do together. I just didn’t want them to run out at the market.” 

“Have you planned out our entire October?” Isa raised an eyebrow as he reached to brush a strand of hair out of Lea’s face. 

“Isa, you know I don’t make plans! But I do have lots of ideas, yeah. And I thought maybe if you weren’t busy this week, we could...I don’t know, put up some decorations around the house? Like skeletons and bats and --” 

“Sounds like fun. I’m sure I have some time that I can spare. Perhaps tomorrow night we can start a horror movie marathon. I’ll let you pick the movie.” 

“Good! I’ve got lots of ideas.” 

“Not the one with the animal cemetery. That little kid creeps me out.” 

“I can’t argue with that.” 

The teenagers had returned by now with blankets and trash bags that they spread out across the floor. Naminé immediately picked her spot and already had a marker in her hand, drawing out exactly what she wanted to carve on the pumpkin. She’d come far more prepared than Lea had ever hoped for. 

“What else do we need? Stuff to carve them with, right?” Roxas asked. 

“A knife!” Xion exclaimed with delight, and in an instant she was gone, banging around in the kitchen in search of utensils. She returned carrying every single knife that they had stored in there, and she tossed them onto the ground with little regard for who or what they might hit.

“What now?” Roxas said, plopping down next to Naminé with his gigantic pumpkin settled onto his lamp. “Do we just start carving?”

“Not yet.” Lea sat down in front of him and picked up a serrated knife, which he used to remove the stem on top of his pumpkin. He set it aside and scooped out a handful of pulp and seeds, holding it up for the teenagers to see. Roxas wrinkled his nose like the stuff had a particularly bad smell. “We have to get all this out first so we can put the candles in there.” 

“Candles? Why would we put candles in there?” Xion asked. 

Lea scooped out another handful and tossed it onto the blanket. “You’ll see, okay? Just trust me. You don’t remember all the pumpkins in Halloweentown?” 

“I’ve never been to Halloweentown,” Naminé pointed out. She turned the front of her pumpkin she’d been drawing on to face them. “How do you think this will look? Scary enough?” 

It was a beautiful drawing of what appeared to be their mansion with an elaborate tree standing next to it, its long limbs hanging over the roof like reaching fingers. A few ghosts and bats drifted around in the air. 

“Wow,” Xion whispered, her eyes wide with awe. 

Roxas scoffed. “Okay, we get it. You’re talented. No need to brag.” 

Naminé rolled her eyes and smiled, nudging him playfully in the arm. “I only hope the carving will look as good. I’ve never done this before.” 

“Hey, why don’t we make this a contest?” Lea suggested. “Best pumpkin carving gets out of doing chores for a week?” 

“But how will we decide who wins?” Xion asked. “Obviously we’re all going to vote for our own.” 

“I’m offended. I think I’m a bigger person than that,” Lea said. “I can admit defeat when I know I’ve been bested.” 

“Plus, you guys have an unfair advantage,” Roxas pointed out. “You’ve done this before, and we have no clue what we’re doing. And Naminé is like, the most talented person we know, so she’s probably going to win anyway.” 

“Aw, Roxas,” Naminé said with a grin. “That’s sweet.” 

“We post the pictures on Kingstagram and let our friends vote,” Isa said. “That’s how we decide. And Roxas, if you would have seen the abominations that Lea and I created as children, you would not be saying that we have an unfair advantage.” 

Lea grinned. He wondered if Isa was thinking about the ugly portraits they did of each other as well. That was probably his favorite Halloween memory to date. “So it’s settled then? We’ll help you get started, and then it’s every person for themselves.” 

Roxas glared at him. “My pumpkin is gonna kick your pumpkin’s ass.” 

“In your dreams, tiny ball of rage. So look, cut your stem off and start scooping all the pulp out. It feels kind of weird, but it’s kind of --” 

Xion smacked Roxas in the face with a handful of pumpkin pulp. “Looks gross too. So it’ll match with your face perfectly.” 

Roxas’s jaw dropped as he scraped seeds out of his hair and Isa high-fived Xion. “Competition brings out a different side of you. I don’t think I like it.” 

Xion grinned innocently. “Sorry, I’ve got some things I need to do this week. Getting out of chores would save me loads of time.” 

“Well, in that case…” Roxas grabbed a handful of pulp and smacked it right on top of Xion’s head. She gasped, looking torn between wanting to clean herself off and wanting to hit him. Naminé giggled at the spectacle, but most of her attention was focused on her pumpkin. Lea had a feeling she didn’t really care about the competition at all; it was all about the art.

“Children,” Isa scolded, “let’s calm down and try to get along --” 

Pumpkin pulp splattered across his face, and he winced, spitting out a pumpkin seed as Lea snorted and Roxas and Xion fell over each other with laughter. Stiffly, Isa reached up and brushed strands of pulp out of his eyes, which flashed dangerously as he glared at the laughing teenagers. 

“You want war, Roxas?” he growled. “Then war it shall be.” 

It all happened very quickly. Before Lea could manage to get his own pumpkin pulp as artillery, there were projectiles flying from seemingly every direction, and he was on his feet, stampeding around blindly as seeds and pulp struck him on what felt like every inch of his body. He only had a small handful of pulp, but he managed to toss it in front of him, and the scream of surprise let him know that he had hit Naminé. Soon there would be retaliation. 

He scooped the remnants of everything that had hit him into his hands and ran, heading toward the stairs in hopes that if he could get someplace higher, he could hit more targets and avoid getting hit himself. It really had turned into every person for themselves, and in times like these, he knew that Xion, Roxas, and Isa were ruthless. Naminé was the only bit of light left in this cruel, war-stricken world. 

His foot hit the bottom step, and immediately a pair of arms wrapped around his waist, dragging him backward with such force that he and his attacker both went down, smacking hard into the ground and knocking the wind from Lea’s lungs. He managed to escape the hold on him and rolled over onto his side, heaving in breaths as he smashed the pumpkin pulp into Isa’s hair. 

“So much for not making a mess, huh?” he said, smirking. 

Isa was trying to recover, but he wasn’t fast in getting the innards out of his hair, and he had completely run out of anything to throw. “Please. I knew when I agreed to this that there was going to be a mess. Nothing can happen in this house without making a mess.” 

He managed to get some loose and tossed it at Lea, missing just narrowly as Lea clambered to his feet and made his way toward the stairs again. He ran right into Xion and Naminé’s double attack. Xion leaped from the banister, her arms full of pulp, and landed right in front of Lea as she began pelting him all over like she was shooting bullets at him. Pulp seemed to be raining down from the ceiling, from wherever Naminé stood above him, exacting her wrath for the previous attack.

It seemed impossible that this much gunk could come from just five pumpkins, but it just kept coming, and Lea was covered in it from head to toe, staggering around and trying to shake it loose so that he would at least have some way to defend himself, but that seemed impossible too. Where the hell were the kids getting all of their stuff? It certainly felt like it was all on him. His face was covered, and he was nearly blinded to what was going on around him, but he managed to get a hit on Roxas before he felt his foot smash into something mushy below him. 

The war ceased. The screams died. He shook his foot, and most of the pulp finally fell off of him as well. 

He had stepped on Naminé’s pumpkin. 

“Oh no,” was all he could manage to say. The look of horror on Naminé’s face was enough to make his heart ache.   
“See? This is what happens when we go to war!” Xion exclaimed, gesturing toward the remains of the pumpkin on the ground. “There are casualties. Innocent lives are taken.” 

“You started it!” Roxas said, jabbing her in the chest. 

“Nuh-uh! You --” 

“It’s not a big deal,” Isa said. There was pulp hanging in front of his eyes, and seeds dotted his wild, messy hair. He picked up his pumpkin, handing it over to Naminé. “You can use mine.” 

Naminé hesitated as she stared at the unmarred pumpkin. “But then you won’t have one.” 

“I can sit out. It isn’t fair for you to not do your first pumpkin carving.” 

“I should be the one to sit out,” Lea said. “Naminé, I’m so sorry. I couldn’t see.” He looked around the room. He couldn’t even comprehend how this much chaos had occurred with just five little pumpkins. There was gunk on the walls, on the stairs, on the banister, hanging from the chandelier. Plus, they were all covered. “Hey, I can head back to the market really quick. I’ll get you the best pumpkin they have.” 

“Market is closed,” Isa informed him. “It’s getting late.” He sighed. “You were excited about this, and it was an accident. I’ll go back to working on my project, and you can all enjoy --” 

“We’ll share a pumpkin, okay?” Lea smiled. “That could be fun.” 

“When have we ever been able to properly share anything?” Isa said. “Even sharing blankets with you is a nightmare.” Nonetheless, he handed his pumpkin over to Naminé and sat back down on the blanket with seeds falling down all around him. 

“Are we still competing?” Roxas asked. 

“Let’s just have fun,” Xion suggested. “Besides, I think it’ll take all of us to clean this mess up.” 

Lea plopped down next to Isa, who was already making small incisions in the pumpkin. So far, it was hard to tell what he was trying to do. 

“What are we making?” Lea asked. 

Without looking up, Isa replied, “I was thinking of just doing a family portrait. Stick figures, of course. I’m not an artist.” He had his tongue poking out in concentration, and he’d retrieved his glasses again, which meant he was being Very Serious. 

“That’s really sweet,” Lea said, leaning against him. He placed his head on Isa’s shoulder, reveling in the warmth of him as he watched his steady hand cut lines into the pumpkin with extreme accuracy. He was always better at these sorts of things. There’d been cadavers in the castle…

He shuddered, warding off the memory. At least they were already dead when they got there. 

“Here,” Isa said, handing him the paring knife that he’d been using. “Add whatever you want to it.” 

“Let’s put a cat over here.” 

“We don’t have a cat.” 

“Yeah, but it’s Halloween. And we definitely should have a cat.” 

Isa smiled, and everything felt right in the world again. It was strange to think that just a few months ago, Lea was worried that they would never have moments like this ever again. Now, it felt like they’d never stopped. 

He worked with care and precision, trying not to mess up what Isa had already done, but he was bad at all things artistic, and the cat came out looking more like a mouse from someone’s nightmares. Isa didn’t seem to mind, though. They took turns cutting and carving, adding on wherever they could manage to fit something. They fought when Lea tried to make himself taller than Isa, and they ended up having to stand up and measure to make sure that Lea was indeed right about their height differences. 

He was. 

It felt so childish to argue about that it made him nostalgic for the days in Radiant Garden when they went on midnight walks and tried to commune with the dead in cemeteries with no results. Things had been mostly simple then. 

But this, he thought, was much better. He had Isa, and they had a little family. Everything was as it should be. 

“Damn it,” Roxas mumbled under his breath. “I messed up.” 

“Let me see,” Xion said. 

Roxas turned the pumpkin around for all of them. It looked as if he was trying to carve “Happy Halloween” into the pumpkin, along with a little ghost friend, but it looked as if it said, “Habpy Hallowoen.” 

“We can fix that,” Isa told him. “Let me see it.” 

Roxas handed the pumpkin over, and Isa got to work cutting and breaking off pieces of pumpkin. Silence swelled in the giant foyer, and Lea watched with fascination as he worked, correcting the tiny mistakes as if they were no big deal at all. If Lea would have tried to do it, the whole pumpkin would have fallen apart. 

“There,” Isa said, handing it back to him. “It happens. But it should be fine now.” 

Roxas looked at it, then nodded in satisfaction. “Thanks.” 

“I’m all done!” Naminé announced. She turned the front of her pumpkin to face them, and sure enough, it looked just as wonderful and elaborate as the marker drawing had looked on the other pumpkin. She had even managed to add little details to the tree to make it actually appear like wood. 

“Whoa,” Xion whispered, leaning forward to touch it, like she didn’t think it was real. 

“That’s going to be beautiful when we light a candle inside it,” Lea commented. 

Naminé smiled shyly, shrugging off the compliment. “Thanks. I like it. This was really fun. Thanks for getting us pumpkins, Lea.” 

“You’re welcome. Thanks for showing us all up, I guess.” 

“Yeah, Naminé,” Roxas said with a roll of his eyes. “Geez. Spare a crumb of talent for the rest of us.” 

She giggled. Lea couldn’t help but notice the blush that crept across her cheeks. “Thanks, Roxas.” 

“Ours is done too,” Isa told them, placing the pumpkin in the middle of the blanket for all of them to see. “I think.” 

They were all silent for a moment. Then, Roxas spoke. “Yikes.” 

“Shut up, we’re not good,” Lea said. “It’s not that bad, is it? I mean, at least we didn’t write Habpy Hallowoen.” 

Roxas kicked him, and he laughed but didn’t retaliate. He didn’t want to bust anymore pumpkins today. 

“I think it’s charming,” Xion said with a smile. “I like our little pet mouse.” 

“It’s a cat!” Lea exclaimed. 

Roxas wrinkled his nose. “Sure it is.” 

Lea groaned. “Well, let’s see your final product then.” 

Roxas spun his around, and sure enough, it looked a whole lot cleaner and overall better than Lea and Isa’s pumpkin. At least the ghost looked like a ghost. 

“It’s fine, I guess,” Lea said with a shrug, and Roxas grinned and kicked him again. 

“Xion?” Isa said, ignoring the violence. “What did you end up doing?” 

“Oh, um...well, it’s not that good…” She showed them her pumpkin, and Roxas’s eyes widened as he gazed upon the image of an extremely detailed wolf howling at a full moon. 

“Wow,” Lea said. “Xion, I didn’t know you were an artist.” 

“We’ve been practicing a lot,” Naminé told him. “She’s insisted that she’s not good enough to show anyone anything she’s been doing, but clearly, she’s crazy, right?” 

“Insane,” Roxas said. “What were you thinking, Xion? This is amazing!” 

“Agreed,” Isa said. “I could never have guessed this was your first time doing this.” 

“Stop, you guys,” Xion said, blushing. “It’s not that good.” 

“It’s incredible,” Lea told her. “I’m so excited to put all these outside so that everyone can see them. They’ll look so good at night. And once we put up all of the decorations around the house, it’ll look like Halloween threw up all over us.” 

“I’m so excited!” Xion exclaimed. “This was so much fun.” Roxas and Naminé nodded their agreement. “Can we do this every year, Lea?” 

Every year. There was going to be more of this. They had their entire lives to make memories together, and this was only the beginning. 

Lea smiled. “Of course. Every single year. And we can make the pumpkin pulp fight a tradition too.” 

Isa looked like he was going to protest, but Lea cut him off with a kiss to the cheek that shut him up pretty quickly. “Happy Halloween, everyone,” he said. 

“Halloween is two weeks away,” Isa informed him. 

“The whole month of October is Halloween, Isa. Get over yourself.”   
“In that case,” Xion said, “happy Halloween, everyone!” 

“Happy Halloween,” they all replied in unison. 

“Now who’s going to help me clean all this up?” Isa asked, and they all groaned.


End file.
